We will go to a place close to Shanghai which is called Mogan Mountain (close to Hanghzuo)
Hiking and “drifting” is on the agenda. I would like to share some of the instructions we got from our chinese colleague. (sorry i am still laughing…)

To pay attention to a safe journey, en route will go through some dangerous area attractions, such as steep jungle, cliff paths which, rapids, deep holes, etc., in these dangerous areas, to try to go hand in hand, do not own adventure to go.

Choose a simple dress to make, easy to dry clothes, but not too thin or too light, or in case of fell into the water would be very embarrassing.

Please do not bring the boat with a pointed blade weapon, in order to ensure the safety of visitors to the person and the hull

Must be “do not walk viewing, viewing not walk,” safety first.

Obviously i have translated everything with google translator, but still! i think they are serious. its gonna be adventurous

that’s by the way “drifting” http://www.xsgpl.com/
All the story from the weekend will follow… stay tuned milalein.ch

The other reason is that I know so many people now in Hongkong.
With my friend Teresa we went for nice Japanese food  and some beers around Tsim Sha Tsui.
My wish was also taking some funny pictures in the japanese fotostudio. It is complicated to explain, but the result looked nice.

Ricky and the family (my future nanny) visit me in my tiny hotel and we went for nice italian food and of course to Starbucks. The young daughter loves Starbucks and ordered some sweets by her own and paid it with her watch.
It was also a pleasure meeting my old friend Eric. We went for a food marathon with Streetfood in Hongkong. I did not imagine that i like it, but it was delicious. Way better than the fisheggs which I ate last time when i was in HK.

Sunday I went with Teresa and her friend to Cheung Chau, an island close to the mainland. We rented some bicycles and ate some very delicious thai food.

You see… again; always eating! but i like it

japanese photo"studio"

skyline hongkong

bicycle tour around cheung chau

food marathon with my friend eric

Just arrived and people wanted to cheat on us with taxi fare.
I could somehow bargain and it brought us close to our Hostel.

We were very exhausted and we first needed a loo, a beer and some food. From the nice terrace from the hostel (peking youth hostel)  we could already see many many people.  After we had something in our tummy we started walking around the pedestrian street. Many streetshops, foodshops and little bars were just around our hostels.

We had this wonderful idea start walking towards the famous Stadium, where the Olympia 2008 was hold (picture 1) . it was very far…
On the map beijing looks very small, but i can insure its HUUGEE!! anyway, in the evening we had a nice at the Ghost Street (picture 2)  people were sitting outside in order to wait until they have a seat in the good restaurants. We chose one, where you don’t have to wait and ordered with our best Chinese.

2nd Day in Beijing was not as we have expected it to be. We took the the subway to the “forbidden city” you cannot imagine how many people were there.
they told us we could wait at least 3 hours to get inside. We also tried to get to the Tiananmen Square… no chance – too much people. Waiting is not our best habit so we continued walking to the “shopping” street where we found a burger to eat.

Hostel Recommendation: Peking International Youth Hostel

As you see on the 1st picture, it was very cozy. The owner took care about us and we had a lovely family dinner in the evening with all the hostel guests. Actually there was not much another possibility, as the village is almost dead. There is really nothing else which you can do there….

The next day we went on this 5 hours hike called “curling dragon”. we were confident that swiss people have less than 5 hours…. so we were able to do it by 4,5h. Of course we took it slowly as we had to take a lot of pictures. so the good think about it was, that we were almost the only one on this track. there was a tour with a bunch of chinese tourists coming from the closest parking place at the wall. So they basically walked up from the parking went few meters on the wall and went down again where the car picked them up. HAHA – that’s China.

Marcel, Sonja and me on the other hand were hiking. up and down and going through the little watchtower. A few were really breaking down soon… otherwise the wall was still in a good shape and we were so happy to went there at this time on this spot. I can highly recommend it to go on a hike beside the tourist-area. So there were also no people selling you stuff… luckily we got some disgusting bred (not toasted of course) with jam with us from the hostel. So we didn’t get starved.

The way back from the hostel to Beijing was a little adventurous as we went by a  a old and very small car (it was surely not a taxi) to the busstation and from there we took the (chicken)bus to Beijing downtown for 15 RMB (2 CHF) . it was fun

here some pictures:

our hostel

our hiking route

great wall

great wall #2

a tourist on the great wall

i met the taekwondo master

it is so great if you can just walk out of the apartment or the office and you have THE choice what do eat.

foodcourt - lunchfood

favourite restaurant - lost heaven

tepanyaki all you can eat/drink (18 CHF)

street food - chao mian (0.80 CHF)

thai tai - amazing

beijing duck

this could go on and on and on…

i found the information on the official website: http://www.midimidi.cn/html/midimusic/news/2012-03-15/1331787416604439.html
and the good thing about it – the entrance fee was 160 RMB -> 12,- for two days.

nothing in English – of course! the queue at 12.30 was already very long. it is funny how we queue for 5 minutes to purchase the ticket, but it took as around one hour to get in with the ticket. i have no idea why this took so long – and they even didn’t take my bottle of water, although it was forbidden. The festival reminds me on a normal OpenAir from Switzerland, however the people were very interesting. The Chinese tried to dress up as bad-ass-asian, or they just made themselves look ridiculous with some masks.  There were also a bunch of little food stalls and few people selling (fake)-cd’s  or vinyls. Most of the bands were really punk-rock and hardcore, a little bit too much for my taste (at the age of 16 i would have liked it) there was also a japanese/chinese band which I do liked. I couldn’t even read their band name, so I cannot share this with you  there were also some bands from norway and sweden, who showed proudly the tattoos on their bodies… i think the chinese people were rather scared than they could enjoyed it. also the bands were expecting a little more excitement.

girls 1

girls 2

girls 3

pictures of boys:

boy #1

boy # 2

and here a nice picture of me and magaly

festival on sunday

The next day we went by Deluxe Boat to Yangshuo. 4 hours on the Boat, driving along the brownish Li River and the scenery view with the hundreds of hills. But first some words from our Tour guide Cherry:

Very lucky day.
Always raining in this area.
Today sunshine… You are very lucky.
Use your imagination. (if looking at the hills, you may see hello kitty)
No money – no honey.
REFLECTION. (of the hills)
we are not in spain -no torreros, not in america no cowboy (on the waterbuffalo)
If camera flies to the water, it belongs to the river
Follow the Panda Team
Today, only Cherry – no apple, no banana

I have never thought that i will be one time part of such a group following a girl with a flag.
After the boat tour we got persuaded going on another tour with our lovely Tourguide Cherry. We were again so lucky to ride the bamboo boat. Our “driver” was the best. We even went down a little waterfall… Action! It was nice looking at the dragon bridge! Quite touristy but it is okay. We saw some baby waterbuffalo and could feed them. There was also this bird catching the fish in the water, but i dont tell you about it because i didnt like it.
I the evening we went back to the Hostel. The Giggling Tree – absolutely recommended from my side. The food is yammie, the hostel is well organized and clean and I slept veeeryyy good.

Saturday, another day in Yangshuo. We rented some bicycles and made a nice tour to the Moon Hill. The Hostel provided us a little booklet with photos from each intersection . So we couldnt get lost. Sometimes it was quite dirty and a part was even flad. We took our sneakers in our hands and walked through the little river. A little walk up to the Moonhill made us sweat and we could ferl the exersice.

art school

ni hao

bicycle route

my friend

sonja and me at the top of the moonhill

i think they were in love with me

1) office moving -
First date for moving our new office was Monday 9th April.
According to the Chinese calender this is a miserable date. In only brings bad luck… Same for Tuesday. So we decided to move in on Wednesday. There was one company who took off the internet. Another one who packed in everything and another company who was responsible for the actual moving part. One guy took even advantage of our power and charged his electric bike. Thats China. After lunch, everything Is packed and we were ready for moving. However, they didnt let us leaving. No worries… So everybody was sitting in the office waiting for the property manager. Somehow our Chinese colleagues were able to manage it. (after few hours)
The new office looks nice and we were even able to work later that day and of course the fancy MILA wall makes it very sexy. Pictures will follow.

2) appartement moving
This was quite spontanous. Friday dinner, our colleague and friend informed us that she get kicked out of her appartement by Sunday. So she would have another day to find a new place. That’s what happened on Saturday. She talked to a agency and found this appartement in Pudong… Let’s say… Its almost out of the country for her. Way different part of the city. Sunday passed by and we got a message that she need to get out of the old appartement at 10 PM (!) and it would be great if we could help her. Thats what we have done. At 10 PM we arrived at her old place and took all the boxes to the little truck which was waiting downstairs. She drove with the truck…and we took the taxi to the new place. She was so confused that she gave the taxi driver the address of OUR appartement. Wtf? Is she living in the same place? No… But nearby, so we could walk. We took all boxes again to the elevator and finish. We were happy to get a beer for a reward afterwards. Moving at 10 PM from a completely different place to another was definitely an experience. But hey. Thats China.

schweigi is bigger than the truck

byebye old appartement

it is not a big deal to get the hair cut in a different country, isn’t?  I got my hair cut in several countries and I must say it was funny at the Chinese Hairdresser.

Luckily I have my colleague Minwen with me. She could translate what I wanted… although she also doesn’t really understand me ?!?!  Anyway, I was too jetlaged anyway to remember what happened around me. I just needed to select the “grade” of the hairdresser. So I look the less educated one, because it was the cheapest. 58 RMB – not even 10 CHF. After a while Minwen left and I was on my own…  Usually my visit at the hairdresser doesn’t take longer than a half n hour. However, there it took me even more than 2 hours. I was okay with the haircut and tried to find my way back to the office. This part wasn’t easy either. I got lost, so I walked few blocks around the building until I finally found it. [picture of my new haircut you can find underneath]

2nd Story – Beauty Salon

Sunday morning was beauty morning. Minwen picked me up to go to her favourite Salon. Time for a Body Massage and for Facial (?)
Body Massage was very very nice. My back was not that relaxed and she had a hard job. One two parts of my back she event had to do “cupping” (schröpfen?). for those who doesn’t it know check out the google images or read in Wikipedia

The facial was also fun. everybody who knows me, know that  i would never ever do that in Switzerland. However, i got convinced and thought why not?! oh my god… how on earth could there be so many different creams, and lotions and tonic water to clean the face, make it smooth and whatever they did there????  The ladies in the salon loved my nose. WTF? Anyway, i took this as an advantage and hope they will also bring me some food for the next break. i was very hungry. so they brought me dumplings on the bed.. it felt like i am on the hospital and everybody cared about me. haha!

now picture time:

Beauty Salon

haircut

On the airport I took the taxi. and the travel guide was right – i couldn’t find a taxidriver who speaks English. Luckily I got the Home Address in Chinese Characters on my iPhone. After a short shower we went to the office.  Beside working, the short walk to the supermarket was very excited. The big Carefour is very very big and has so many different funny food and other things with funny pictures on it.

Champagne before takeoff

Lunchtime

Snack, Chickenfeet

funny snacks